


Happy

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [23]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 20:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: For his birthday, Nyx gives Noctis something he never knew how to ask for. But somehow, Nyx always knows.





	Happy

**Author's Note:**

> over-the-top, double-stuffed oreo fluff for noct's birthday because he deserves nice things. I went to the beach last week and thought he might like it, too

“Got everything?”

“How should I know? You’re the one who packed.”

Noctis had no idea where he was going, just that Nyx was a mastermind of surprises. How he had managed to orchestrate the itinerary for Noct’s entire day without giving himself away as the Prince’s secret paramour was so far above his understanding of espionage that Noctis just wrote it down as another piece in a long string of proof that Nyx was a god bound in human flesh.

The man was magic. There was nothing else to it. It was as if he’d stepped out of a modern retelling of a childhood fairytale. The dark knight astride his silver steed – the motorcycle Noctis had gifted him on his own birthday – laden with magical tokens – picnic baskets, a change of clothes, beach towels (Noctis had a bit of a clue where he was taking them) – and beckoning to his Prince with a gallant stretch of his arm up the staircase of his chambers – the two broken steps to Nyx’s spartan apartment.

Noctis took his hand and mounted the bike behind him. His smile was high from the day, drunkenly peppering kisses against the nape of Nyx’s neck before he revved the engine and swept him away.

Traditionally, Noctis spent the eve before his birthday on the verge of having an anxiety attack.

He didn’t remember when exactly it had started. It was a gradual dread that grew more and more severe each year that he got older… Each year that he grew closer to inheriting the Crown.

He used to love his birthday. It was one of the few days of the year that he looked forward to the most. It was one of the very rare days where his father fought hard and often won the time to give Noctis his undivided attention. He remembered sitting in the gardens if it was sunny or in the sun room when it was not, leaving the pristine, pressed edges of excellent wrapping paper in tatters on the ground next to his father’s knee. He remembered when Regis was as delighted as he was by whatever surprise was revealed from beneath the wrappings.

He remembered precious hours of playing with a stuffed black chocobo that was as big as Noctis was at six-years-old. He remembered knocking over lamps and getting Regis to laugh when he wanted to practice with his new fishing rod when he was eight. He remembered his first video game at ten, speeding a moogle-shaped car down a road of cake and throwing banana peels at his father’s behemoth monster truck.

It was never about the gifts. At some point, Noctis grew up and realized that his father didn’t seem to know that. Regis bought him something that he knew his son wanted every year still, but the hours that he spent enjoying it with him lessened each time.

Noctis started spending his birthday more often with strangers at televised galas hosted in one of the royally owned luxury hotels in the heart of the city than he did with his own family. He spent his nights afterwards curled around the feeling of a breaking heart and an old stuffed chocobo that used to be as big as him. It didn’t smell like his father’s cologne anymore.

He was turning twenty this year. He wished that he was turning ten again.

He almost felt like he was when he wandered into the kitchen and found Ignis serving pancakes to the King of Lucis.

“Your boyfriend bullied me into it,” Regis told him when it was just the two of them – Ignis vanishing in the bathroom to talk himself down from a panic attack at having just served a commoner’s meal to the most important man in Lucis. “Not that it took a lot for him to convince me.”

He raised his coffee cup to his lips, but didn’t take a sip. It was a mug Gladio had gotten Noctis a few years back. It sported the face of a very disgruntled cat, its tail curving to form the handle. Regis looked at the angry face as if its ire was directed straight at him.

“I’m sorry that things have gotten… that I’ve been…”

Regis pursed his lips and set the cooling cup on the coffee table. It wasn’t often that Noctis saw the King struggle for words. But then, he supposed there was no pre-written script for this kind of thing. His father’s fist pressed into his palm, the Ring of the Lucii digging into the wrinkled flesh. Noctis reached out for him, fingers trembling as he pressed them over his wrist.

“It’s, um…” He was worse at words than his father was. They had more in common than he feared they didn’t. “It’s fine. This is good… Thank you.”

It was quiet between them for a moment. Years of unspoken regrets snapped like a broken rubber-band in the space across the couch. Regis tentatively lifted an arm to loop around Noct’s neck, drawing him to his shoulder in a hug. His voice was as rough as his beard against Noct’s ear.

“Happy birthday.”

It wasn’t a present that he could rip open and parade around his living room, but it was the only gift that Noctis wanted since he grew up. He could smell his father’s cologne again.

They sat like that for a while, before a sound from the bathroom reminded them that they weren’t alone. Regis recovered himself, pulling away like stone from a mountain.

“I have instructions for you,” Regis remembered, clearing his throat – it clears the mist from his eyes, too. “Ignis is going to take you out around town with your friends for the morning. At noon, you’re to go down to the apartment.”

The guys took him out to his favorite places for the day: the arcade, the lake in the park – and didn’t complain once about how long it took him to catch a fish that he was satisfied with before they could leave – and his favorite sushi place.

Gladio’s gift to him was intimidating well-meaning, but nevertheless intruding strangers from approaching the Prince for birthday selfies. He also got him a nice weather-beater with a catfish sewn into the back. Prompto got him a new case for his phone sporting a design of the King’s Knight main cast in distinct silhouette, as well as a flash drive of some of his photographs that Noctis had mentioned wanting copies of. Ignis had gone on a spiritual quest to find him an old and rare edition of an ancient astronomer’s guide to the stars.

Noctis took all of the little gifts with him when he left them for Nyx’s apartment. It was hard to make up an excuse to leave them on his birthday, but somehow, they all seemed to know that something had been planned for him.

He spent the walk down to the immigrant district clutching his presents to his chest and his gifts to his heart.

When Noctis saw the distant shimmer of the sea from beneath the visor of his helmet, his fingers curled around Nyx’s arm, excitement screaming from his fingertips where his voice was lost to the whipping air.

The hilly countryside clutched along the freeway slowly started to smooth into marshy planes. The sky opened up as the trees retreated towards the back of their tailpipe. Gulls floated in suspension on the briny air, as stark white and subtly shifting as the cut-out clouds in the massive blue canvas. Skyscrapers shrunk down to little stucco cottages, proud pointed rooftops of old hotels, and open-air patios beneath decorative awnings and brightly-colored flags and seashell-shaped wind-chimes.

The summer season was winding down. Parking right up against the boardwalk was a dream. Noctis took off his helmet and his wind-hollowed ears were massaged by the sweet, salty crash of the sea against the beach just a few short steps across the boardwalk. He could hear the cry of the seabirds, the laughter of children, and nothing else. No car horns or newscasts or cursing or traffic. It was just the sea and the bark of his own laugh as he threw his arms around Nyx and nearly toppled him off of the bike as he stepped on the kickstand.

They paid the fee for the bathhouse and changed into appropriate beach bum attire. It was a gift just to ogle Nyx in the bare minimum of legally approved clothes coverage – the stubby green tentacles of Malboro-kun climbed up from the hem of navy-blue swim trunks; aviators, barefoot, and he looked like a summer catalogue model, all tanned skin and seaside ease, with a crooked smile that made Noct’s knees melt.

It didn’t help him get his balance out on the sands. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been by the sea, but by the Six, he had missed it. He missed the heat of the sand between his toes and the way its sinking collapse beneath his feet sloughed away the harsh feeling of asphalt and boot soles and sore ankles from hard landings in warp training. He missed the gentle breath of the breeze off of the waves, blasting open every pore on his face and invigorating every tired line beneath his eyes. He missed the soft noises, the kind silence, the hypnotic rhythm of the waves with their siren call to think of nothing but their pulse.

“You alright there, little king?” Nyx chuckled, finding them a spot on the crest of the sands pushed up by high tide. “You look a little dazed.”

“Stunned, yeah. Can’t believe you pulled this off.”

“I can’t believe you doubt me.” Nyx pouted, rolling out beach towels and planting an umbrella in the sand before swinging an arm around Noct’s waist and tugging him down to the ground. “You know I’d do anything for you. Including keeping your pasty white skin from getting burnt to a crisp. Shirt. Off.”

“That’s okay, I-I’m good.”

Nyx paused with a bottle of sunscreen in his hand, peering at Noctis from above his sunglasses. He considered the way Noct’s eyes roved up and down the beach at the sparse clusters of tourists and local loungers. Nyx smiled and sidled a little closer, a hand sneaking its way along Noct’s hip to tease beneath the hem of his thin black shirt.

“Modesty’s adorable on you, but it’s going against my ulterior motives to ravish you with longing stares and bedroom eyes.”

Noctis laughed, nervous – and tickled by Nyx’s fingers skating against the strip of skin above his black chocobo printed trunks. It was hard to think that he deserved the attention when he would much rather admire Nyx. The ridged planes of deeply defined muscle, the subtle strings of ink along the taut skin of his arm, the spider web scar bolting across his chest; an expansive valley of heat and faults and chorded strength encapsulating kindness. It was hard to think himself worthy of deserving it. Harder still to deny Nyx when he looked at him so sweetly and seductively and secretly.

“Come on,” Nyx pleaded. “It’s just you and me, the sun, the sea. Let loose a little, it’s your birthday.”

Noctis huffed out a defeated sigh, Nyx’s smile brimming with victory as he finally pulled his shirt over his head. It actually wasn’t the end of the world. And there were so few people on the beach that no one was near enough to pin questioning stares on his scar. The air felt good. As good as Nyx’s hands did, attentively massaging in lotion across every inch of fair skin. Whatever excuse he could use to get Nyx to touch him so tenderly was worth it to him.

They didn’t do much, but that was the whole point of the beach. Phones off, worries aside, open space, and the catharsis of salt water seeping into every unseen ache of body and mind. Nyx was determined to give him a day where he could just _breathe._ Sink down into the sand and run the warm grains of silk through his fingers. Soak up the sun on his face and feel it steep into his hair. Laugh as Nyx dragged him into the foamy laps of the water to drift with the tide.

It felt like they had been there all their lives, and yet the sun still set too quickly. Noctis whined when Nyx tried coaxing him off of the beach, only conceding when he promised him that they would be back later. That the day wasn’t over yet.

When Noctis looked at his face in the bathhouse mirror after changing back into his clothes, it looked brighter, pinker, cleaner. His hair was wilder, sprinkled with sand and salt and thrown about by the winds. He didn’t try to comb it out too much. He wanted the sea to stay with him for as long as he could keep it.

The boardwalk turned alive at night. Lights flashed and music blasted from each game venue. Attendants cried out to lure them in close enough to play. Nyx decided that Noctis needed a giant stuffed animal to commemorate the evening, no matter how much Noct protested that the games were all rigged and no amount of elite military training was going to earn Nyx a victory over a tourist trap. It didn’t stop him from trying. Noctis applauded him for each failure and consoled him with kisses. Nyx made it up to him by buying him a stuffed seal in the aquarium gift shop with what little money he hadn’t thrown away on a scam. It was so cliché, but Noctis loved it, unashamedly hugging the creature beneath his arm as they wandered the boardwalk.

Cheap ice cream and hot coffee were hunted down to keep them awake through the rest of the night. Noctis saw paper signs posted inside every food vendor and boardwalk post that the weekly fireworks started once it got dark. This was the last show of the season.

The lights from the boardwalk were a wall against daemons. Not even the beach, black though it was, invited the night terrors to crawl along the cold sands. Noctis huddled beneath Nyx’s arm, his body always warm to ward off the evening chill, the stuffed seal squished between their hips.

“Thank you,” Noctis murmured against his shoulder.

“Have a good day?”

“The best. You make every day perfect, though.”

Nyx snorted in laughter, hugging him tighter to his side and kissing into his hair. It was all _so much._ The warmth of Nyx, the salt in the air, the softness of the sand and the stuffed animal – he hadn’t been given a stuffed animal as a gift since he was a kid. He’d wanted to be ten again when he woke up that morning, just to get back those things he loved about his childhood. But he felt like ten and so much more today. He felt all of the sweetness from when he was a kid and all of the good kinds of intensity of being older. He felt young at heart and bold in body with Nyx.

He felt… innocent again. That was something he’d never thought he’d get back.

“Noct… why are you crying?”

The question startled him. Because he hadn’t felt the sting in his eyes or the warmth on his cheeks. He blinked and the lights along the boardwalk beaded in the water at the edges of his eye. He laughed in spite of the mortifying escape of tears he had never meant to shed.

“Sorry, I…”

He brushed his sleeve across his eyes, Nyx’s hand nursing circles between his shoulders. He looked up at him, the only person he’d ever let see his tears like this. Because he was the only person that didn’t seem to fear them. He didn’t shy away from them or try to make them stop. But he carried them until Noctis was strong enough to drop them himself. He was patient with him, didn’t condemn him for them, didn’t demand that there be a reason for them. Sometimes, he just got too overwhelmed not to cry. It was hard to explain that in words, but he tried to, anyway.

“I… For a really long time, I didn’t think that I would ever be this happy. I don’t know how to say or thank or do anything that could describe it. I didn’t even know that this was all I was really asking for every year. But somehow you did. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Badly,” Nyx laughed, light as the sea breeze. “I made you cry on your birthday.”

Noctis choked out another laugh, furiously rubbing his sleeve against his face to try and get himself together. Nyx playfully raised the stuffed seal’s little fin to his cheek to help him. That reduced him to a ridiculous jumble of giggles, making him cry for entirely different reasons.

The sky and the sea lit up from further down the beach, a loud crack splitting the horizon with a shower of white and red sparks. Nyx wrapped both arms around him and held him tight, murmuring between fireworks, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you this sooner, little king.”

“I have you now. That makes it all worth it.”

Noctis felt his mouth curve into a smile against his head. His favorite crooked smirk, with his favorite hushed words made just for him.

“I’m yours, little king.”


End file.
